KENYA

Photo by: TebNad

Republic of Kenya
Jamhuri ya Kenya

COUNTRY OVERVIEW

LOCATION AND SIZE.

Located in east Africa, Kenya has a total area of 582,650 square
kilometers (224,962 square miles), rendering it slightly larger than
twice the size of Nevada. With a coastline of 536 kilometers (333
miles), Kenya borders the Indian Ocean to the east, Somalia to the
northeast, Ethiopia to the north, Sudan to the northwest, Uganda to the
west, and Tanzania to the south. Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, is
situated slightly south of the center point of the country.

POPULATION.

Between 1975 and 1997, the population of Kenya, which more than doubled
from 13.7 million to 28.4 million, increased at an exceedingly high
average growth rate of 3.4 percent. In July 2000, the CIA
World Factbook
estimated that the population stood at 30,339,770. With a current
annual growth rate of 1.6 percent, it is expected that this figure will
increase to approximately 37.6 million by 2015. The birth rate in Kenya
is 29.35 births per 1,000 persons, while the death rate is 14.08 deaths
per 1,000 persons. In terms of age structure, the population of Kenya is
relatively young, with 43 percent of all Kenyans aged between 0 to 14
years, 54 percent aged between 15 to 64 years, and only 3 percent aged
65 years and over. In 1997, only 30.4 percent of the population lived in
urban areas, though this figure is expected to expand to 44.5 percent by
2015.

The population of Kenya is highly heterogeneous (diverse). Some of the
major ethnic groups include the Kikuyu (comprising 22 percent of the
population), the Luhya (14 percent), the Luo (13 percent), the Kalenjin
(12 percent), the Kanmba (11 percent), the Kisii (6 percent), and the
Meru (6 percent). There are also several other African groups (15
percent), in addition to a small population of Arabs, Asians, and
Europeans. With 38 percent of Kenyans adhering to one denomination or
another of Protestantism, and 28 percent practicing Roman Catholicism,
the majority of Kenyans are Christian. An additional 26 percent of the
population follow an indigenous religious system unique to east Africa,
while another 7 percent are devoted to Islam. A plethora (a large
amount) of indigenous languages are spoken in Kenya, though the only 2
official languages are English and Kiswahili. The latter, which acts as
the
lingua franca
(common language) in east Africa, is a Bantu-based language with strong
Arabic influences.

Like many sub-Saharan African nations, Kenya currently confronts an
HIV/AIDS epidemic of massive proportions. At the end of 1997,
conservative estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO) placed the
total population living with HIV/AIDS at approximately 1,600,000. The
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) argues that HIV/AIDS is
inextricably interrelated to issues of poverty. Poor women in urban
areas, for example, are often forced out of economic necessity to engage
in prostitution in order to survive. Prostitution, in turn, exposes
sexual workers and their clients to high risks of HIV contraction. As
such, any effective HIV/AIDS strategy on the part of the Kenyan
government will have to address the dynamics of poverty in addition to
gender inequality.

TOURISM.

With its beautiful coastal beaches, wildlife, unique scenery, and
history of relative stability, Kenya is the tourist hub of east Africa.
Indeed, tourism is the country's second-largest foreign exchange
earner, next to the agricultural sector as a whole. In 1995, Kenya
received an estimated 785,000 tourists with earnings of about US$486
million, a slight decline from the US$501 million in earnings and
807,600 tourists of the previous year. Earnings from tourism further
declined to US$448 million in 1996, though this figure still equaled
about 65 percent of the
combined revenues from tea and coffee exports. Europeans account for
more than 50 percent of Kenya's tourists, while Americans account
for less than 10 percent.

According to the U.S. Department of State
Country Commercial Guide 2000,
the relative decline in Kenya's tourism sector can be attributed
to a high level of crime, disintegrating infrastructure, the eruption of
ethnic violence in the early 1990s, and growing competition from
neighboring countries. Reassuringly, political stability has returned
and the government has offered various fiscal incentives to firms
operating in the tourism sector, thereby counterbalancing the negative
trends. Several
multinational corporations
are involved in the tourist sector in Kenya, including the Hilton
International (British), the Intercontinental Hotel (Japanese), and
Safari Park Hotel (South Korean).

FINANCIAL SERVICES.

The financial sector has grown considerably in importance throughout the
1990s, increasing its value contribution to the economy from KSh7,069
million in 1991 to KSh9,843 million in 1996. In terms of GDP
contribution, the financial sector accounted for 8.2 percent of GDP in
1991 and 10.1 percent in 1996. In the same year, approximately 81,000
Kenyans worked in the financial sector.

As of the beginning of 1998, the highly diversified financial sector in
Kenya consisted of the Central Bank of Kenya, 53 domestic-and
foreign-owned commercial banks, 15 non-bank financial institutions, 2
mortgage finance companies, 4 building societies, and numerous insurance
companies and other specialized financial institutions. The banking
sector is dominated by 4 large banks, which aggregately control 50
percent of all bank assets and 52 percent of bank deposits. The largest
bank, the state-owned Kenya Commercial Bank, accounts for 17 percent of
bank assets and 18 percent of bank deposits. The multinational Barclays
Bank, with 16 percent of bank assets and 15 percent of bank deposits, is
next in line, followed by the state-owned National Bank of Kenya and the
multinational Standard Chartered Bank, each respectively boasting 8
percent of bank assets and 9 percent of bank deposits.

The Nairobi Stock Exchange, which handles 61 listed firms, was
established in 1954. In January 1995, the stock market, including
stock-brokerage, was opened up for foreign direct participation,
although there is a 40 percent limit on foreign ownership.
Market capitalization
has recently manifested considerable growth, increasing from US$1.89
billion in 1995 to US$2.08 billion in 1998.

User Contributions:

OMG!! so useful thank you! :) It really helped me on the project i am doing on Kenya. Ifound it really hard but when i found this website it made it a lot easier. I was worried that i would not get it complete on the due date!:)

Great! great! great!, can you imagine the chiefs and DOs of Likoni know nothing about the population of people thy serve? after going in the DOs office for two days i thought of doing it my own way and the web has really helped me though i am not done with my project.

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